Gizmo Watch

NES Coffee Table - A very neat homebrew that will leave pro gamers gasping

jayprashanth — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:45:50 +0000

Jayprashanth:

Nintendo’s controller has been the inspiration of a many a homebrew gaming project but Kyle Downes’s NES Coffee Table is the neatest homebrew that we’ve ever encountered. Kyle has just pimped up a wooden box into a massive controller. For this, he has first cut off sections of the different control buttons. Then, the buttons are attached to springs which transmit signals through a bus that is attached to the main console which sits some distance away. Very neat stuff! To use it as a coffee table, Kyle just needs to place a big glass plate on the gigantic NES controller. Some more utility makes it into this innovative DIY project in the form of the bottom of the coffee table being used as storage space to store a couple of games and assorted knick knacks. That’s about the NES Coffee Table. Meanwhile, we’ve got this very descriptive video lined up for you.

Via: gearfuse

Optimus Prime Convoy tranforms into an iPod dock!

siddhesh — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:29:19 +0000

Siddhesh:

Terminator, Robocop, and last but not the least, the Transformers; the saga of the intelligent machines seems to be never-ending for the diehard fans. Recent flick the Iron Man has just begun to cast it’s spell on the fans, and to the delight of the geeks here comes a toy-cum-iPod dock that revives the action packed memories of the Transformers. This iPod dock mimics the Optimus Prime Convoy - the few of the ‘good’ machines of the onscreen man-machine battle, grabbing it’s minutest details! A perfect gift for a perfect geek or a must-have if you yourself are a geek! Creation of Takara Tomy, you can have Optimus Prime Convoy at $145 on his Japanese website or just click here!

Source: DVICE

Tactile LED TileToy revives a retro pattern

Atul — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:09:23 +0000

Atul:

Remember the advent of handheld videogames, where plastic based LEDs were the serene rulers. Taking inspiration from the bygone era, designer Tuomo Tammenpaa has developed a modern version of an electronic game prototype using tangible LED tiles, dubbed the Tile Toy. It comes across as the most advanced form of the technology put to functional use. Each of the 2” tile/square (pictured), built on a modular base for software like flexibility, comprehends the behavior of the other tile. Magnetism allows them to function together, however they can each function as an individual unit too. They are cordlessly controlled through embed sensors and transmitters, plus a central computer serves as a control unit. The tile toys can be put to various uses from an arcade game to an LED scroll, depending on the users’ choice.

[Source: Saumadesign]

Handphone: Futuristic concept to jeopardize future of handsets

Bharat — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:35:56 +0000

Bharat:

Where is your cell phone at the moment? Stop; don’t trouble yourself searching for it, why search your phone when you need it? Perhaps that’s what you have been doing all the while. Numerous phones have hit the stands, with avant garde technological advancements, yet this Handphone concept, with GSM - UMTS, is one that surely surpasses them all. This device designed to have it to hand and allow you to call using a natural gesture, features voice control for activation and dial memorized numbers. The fingers of the hand make the right size for it, as the microphone can be put very near the mouth and the speaker almost inside the ear to facilitate communication in the most nosiest of spaces aswell. It is easy to wear the handphone owing to its simple design that uses elastic string, which can be rolled around the middle finger and the wrist. Wearing the phone could be normal and trouble-free just like wearing a watch, ring or bracelet. And for the sheer reason of trend â€“ the fashionistas can find elastic string in different colors, none would like missing this futuristic jewel, therefore check out more pictures after the jump.

[Thanks: Massimo Marrazzo][Link]

WaSnake: A functional shelf that twists, turns and displays news

jayprashanth — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:37:46 +0000

Jayprashanth:

Shelves can either be boring pieces of furniture adorning your home or alternatively, they can be the WaSnake. Oh Yes! The WaSnake is one very smart looking functional shelf concept that was showcased at the International Milan Furniture show. The WaSnake, true to its name is one snaky looking wall mounted shelf that packs in functionality. It can be configured to fit almost any room as it has a flat spring like structure that can be shaped and reshaped. Coming to its different functions, this shelf has four LED displays that display text messages, addresses and even news from across the world through RSS feeds. This obviously means that the shelf will have the ability to connect to the internet. If you are already very impressed and want to run off to buy the WaSnake, you will be disappointed. The WaSnake is still a concept and designer Jean Louis Frechin currently has no plans to put it into production.

Via: Gizmodo

Dell To Launch Inspiron 1435, 1535 and 1735 Soon!

alpheus — Fri, 09 May 2008 10:31:29 +0000

Alpheus:

The Dell Inspiron Series will soon see three new additions - the 1435, 1535 and 1735. Although an official announcement hasn’t been made by the company yet, the leaked information points to the fact that the stylish XPS technology will be made available for mainstream customers through the new Inspiron range. Quite evidently, the company plans to address portability as well as top-end functionality through its 14, 15 and 17inch screen options. And in all probability, the design would also be similar to the XPS series. For more details, check out the pictures.

Via:Engadget

Insects meet mechanical watch movements

jayprashanth — Fri, 09 May 2008 10:04:14 +0000

Jayprashanth:

Antique mechanical watches command huge premiums in the collectors market and here we have Mike Libby taking watch movements apart and putting them on insects. Weird is an understatement. And why does Mike go about doing all this? Because he happens to think that the insects closely resemble mechanical contraptions. And as mechanical watches are the closest to mechanical micro engineering that fit insects perfectly, he has chosen mechanical watch movements. I still cannot digest the beautiful mechanical watch movements adorning insects but for those of you who might like them, you will need to shell out anywhere between $250 to $1000 for each of these. For now, take a look at the pics.

Via: InventorSpot

Gun-Cameras To See The Legal 'Go-Ahead' Soon!

alpheus — Fri, 09 May 2008 09:34:02 +0000

Alpheus:

Trigger-happy cops may have to be a little more careful whenever they train their pistols on a law-breaker. The judiciary is not turning a blind-eye anymore, especially since the DC Judicial Committee of Washington DC is all set to pass a draft local bill favoring the incorporation of Gun cameras on pistols. So, the next time cops draw their ammunition, a gunsight video will be recorded. However, it remains to be seen if the department would hire somebody to manage all those videos. For the community, though, it is heartening news as wayward cops would be kept on a tight leash.

Via:Ubergizmo

HandTalk: A glove that communicates

jayprashanth — Thu, 08 May 2008 20:17:27 +0000

Jayprashanth:

Taking motion sensing to all new heights, we now have a glove that can help deaf people communicate. The HandTalk has to be worn by the deaf person on his/her palm. The different palm positions viz. a fist, extended fingers, etc will be sensed by the glove through flexor pads which sense different resistances depending on the curl angle of the fingers. The glove will then synchronize with the cellphone to display the different gestures into text messages, ultimately getting it converted into speech via an off-the-shelf translation program. Thus, the deaf people can communicate with other people who don’t understand the American sign language. Although this very handy contraption is in the prototype stages and can just output 32 words, it will soon become capable of displaying more words. The underlying issue is the fact that the different people move the fingers at different angles which result in the calibration of the glove going haywire. For commercialization, the young team of inventors from Carnegie Mellon University need to somehow get over this hurdle. Let’s hope that this very useful invention sees the light of the day.

Via: textually

Sony's OLED displays come croppers in DisplaySearch's longevity tests

jayprashanth — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:38:33 +0000

Jayprashanth:

For quite some time now, Organic Light Emitting Diodes or OLED’s, have been heralded as the future of display technology as they are thin, sharp and very energy efficient. Sony Electronics enthralled one and all with their ultra thin OLED display based TV called the XEL-1. DisplaySearch, a research firm put this stunning piece of consumer electronics onto the test bed and ran it for 1000 hours. The extrapolated results were a little surprising as they showed that the Sony XEL-1s lost half their brightness at 17000 hours which is well short of Sony’s claim of 30000 hours. This puts serious doubts on the quality of Sony’s OLED displays which might prove to be a huge setback for Sony Electronics’ OLED plans, if this defect is an inherent problem of it’s OLED technology. On the other hand, if this defect is confined to a few batches of OLED displays, the problem could be easily solved. So, for the time being all we can do is to wait and watch for further words on this matter from the Japanese electronics giant.

Via: physorg

Computerized Exoskeleton, learn to ReWalk

ryancondradcarlisle — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:50:33 +0000

Ryancondradcarlisle:

The Washington Post recently posted an article that Israel-based Argo Medical Technologies invented and designed an exoskeleton that could assist the disabled, called ReWalk. ReWalk comes as a relief to people, who are trying to stand or walk. A great find for a rehabilitation center and works as a great exoskeleton for the disabled, we must say. ReWalk restores your self-confidence, because nothing is impossible if you try. The concept was taken from the spider and horseshoe crab. ReWalk has a lightweight brace-support suit system that determines the userâ€™s choice of motion by a computerized remote control. ReWalk has sensors also to help the user gain his or her balance. Moreover, you can wear the suit under your clothing and it comes with crutches. You would have to wait a year for this marvelous product, because it is still under clinical trails.

Via: BookOfJoe

Pentouch Desktop PC concept - Functionality meets sleekness

jayprashanth — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:40:09 +0000

Jayprashanth:

The Pentouch Desktop Computer concept is an innovative concept that aims to rewrite the rules of desktop computing by combining the entire desktop into a user friendly and compact package. This oval shaped PC concept is basically a finger/pen based touch screen PC which compresses all it’s electronics under the large LCD screen making it very similar to a tablet PC. But like a full fledged computer, the Pentouch manages to cram in a DVD optical drive, thanks to it’s sloped design. Talking about the sloped design, the Pentouch is one good looking computer concept which is surrounded by a transparent acrylic shell. Apart from acrylic, a few bits of titanium too make it into the Pentouch’s case to give this desktop a beautiful glass-like metallic finish. All these factors seamlessly blend together to make the Pentouch Desktop Concept a very smart concept that can be used for a plethora of tasks ranging from graphic design to surfing the internet.

Via: Product Page

Hard core geek stuff for the finest Geek Scooter

jayprashanth — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:12:39 +0000

Jayprashanth:

Scooters are popular in campuses across the world which maybe the reason for them being tagged geeky. But, this scooter creation from a geeky duo of Jared and Kevin takes the word Geek to stratospheric heights. The Scooter features a full blown CPU clocking 1.2Ghz that runs on one gigabyte of RAM. Storage is handled by a 2GB flash memory unit that is pretty intelligent as the scooter will encounter a fair share of bumps. All this sits in the scooters underseat, a storage idea, where normally you’d prefer to keep your helmet. To control all this, you have an 8 inch touch screen just above the scooter’s handle. A Garmin GPS for navigation, WiFi, FM transmitter and reciever, etc are other techno-trickery bits that this scooter features. What is astounding is the fact that this DIY project has been built from scratch in just two days. That doesn’t include the donor scooter of course.

Nevertheless, a tremendous achievement and in case you would want to build a scooter similar to this, you need to wait a bit as Jared and Kevin will publish the DIY instructions shortly. We, for our part will try and bring you the DIY instructions as and when the duo posts them, though untill then you could try your own bit of intellect and see if you can better Jared and Kevin.

Product Page :Via: Gizmodo

Pocket Pal MP3 Player with a Magnetic Knob

Atul — Thu, 08 May 2008 08:08:20 +0000

Atul:

Those control interfaces on an MP3 player can be pretty confusing and mostly the ones which choose to be simpler succeed in vowing the user. When talking about simplicity, what could be better, than to have the interface on the outside and the rest of the thingamajig on the inside of your pocket? For that, magnetism had to play a part and thatâ€™s what sets apart the Inventables Pocket Pal MP3 player, which comes with a removable magnetized knob that can be placed on the outside of your pocket. That knob alone controls the volume and also comes in handy for jumping over to the next song.

Via: Product Page

Pink panic: Hello Kitty Widescreen Digital Picture Frame

Asmita — Thu, 08 May 2008 06:38:09 +0000

Asmita:

For once, they have actually managed to put that cat on something it actually belongs to go on. This Hello Kitty Digital Picture Frame is something I’d definitely love to gift my girlie 8-year old cousin. she’s really into the whole “pink” thing right now, so I think its something she’ll really appreciate (actually she asked me if I can persuade her parents to allow her to have own cellphone, but that’s a story for another day). Anyway, for all you Kitty lovers this KT4607 Digital Photo Frame with a 7” widescreen 16:9 TFT LCD display and support for JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF and TIFF file upto 200 megapixels in size is quite a collectible with its sickening pink frame with flower motifs and a Hello Kitty winking and holding the camera at you. With a 170° viewing angle and 32MB internal memory expandable through SD/MMC, CF, XD and MS cards, the frame is quite state of the art and offers an array of other services like slideshow, clock, alarm and calendar functions. You can also jack it up to your TV via an included cable so you can catch your fav episodes of the Hello Kitty TV show!

Source: Chip Chick